Heading into the storm

As the world commemorated D-Day this month, the Observatory has its own story of bravery to tell. The time was Monday, 8 December 1941, a fine, wintry day.

"That morning I had enjoyed a tasty breakfast under my own roof, in the afternoon I was a captive in the hands of the Japanese; it was certainly a rude and sudden change, and we thought it likely that we had the unenviable distinction of being the very first prisoners to be taken in the war of East Asia. ...." (Note 1)

G.S.P. Heywood, Director from 1946 to 1956

Thus wrote G.S.P. Heywood, one of the Director's two assistants at the time. Together with the other assistant, L. Starbucks, they were instructed to dismantle the Observatory's magnetic station at Au Tau and retrieve the equipment there. The place was in the New Territories some 40 kilometres from the Observatory by road. Thus they headed north, passed pickets and found the place deserted --- just as the enemy advanced south from across the border.

There they were captured and spent the next nearly four years in internment together with the then Director, B.D. Evans. It was another world when they emerged from confinement.

There is no lack of courageous acts in the history of the Observatory. During the direct hit by Typhoon Ellen in 1983, two observers, Messrs Leung Kar-man and Ng Tak-leung, persevered with their weather observation at Chek Lap Kok till the temporary weather station there was practically blown down. The photograph below shows the observers standing in front of what was left of the battered station before they were airlifted to safety.

There are silent heroes too. Just as the public go home when tropical cyclone signals are issued, these people head for the hills where the Observatory's weather radar are installed. They are the Radar Specialist Mechanics, charged with ensuring uninterrupted running of the radar which are extremely important for the monitoring of severe storms. There they will stay till the storm is away, usually for a couple of days, and longer if there is no relief because of blocked roads or failed slopes. They leave the comfort of home and family for the frontline and face ravaging winds and rain. For this, they deserve our every respect.

Knowing Observatory colleagues, I am sure the spirit will live on.

B.Y. Lee

Note 1: an excerpt from Mr Heywood's article, published with permission of the Heywood family by the Hong Kong Observatory in the book "Weathering the Storms", 2008.

Climate change - the latest warning

The past year, 2008, saw a number of weather records broken in Hong Kong.

First, it would be best remembered as a year with the longest cold spell in 40 years, which lasted 24 days from late January to mid-February.

Apart from this, several rainfall records were also broken. The deluges in June 2008 brought 1346.1 mm of rain, making it the wettest month since record began in 1884, while the hourly rainfall of 145.5 mm on 7 June broke all past records by a wide margin (Note: the last record was 115.1 mm, recorded on 16 July 2006). The 237.4 mm on the day of 19 April was an all-time daily high for April, while the hourly rainfall of 46.6 mm in the morning of 3 November was the highest for the month of November.

Temperature-wise, October 2008 with a mean of 26.5 degrees was the warmest October ever.

All these are telling us one thing --- we are facing more weather extremes. Scientifically, it is not possible to blame them 100% on climate change. However, newspapers are telling us that many places in the world are experiencing more weather extremes than ever. Climate scientists have long indicated that practically everywhere in the globe, more and more extremes are on the way.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which received the Nobel Peace Price in 2007 for its work on climate change, concluded that climate warming is unequivocal. For Hong Kong, six of the ten warmest years on record occurred in the past ten years.

Results of international research work published this year raise the alarm further. Climate modelling work has been carried out by scientists from U.K. Meteorological Office to find out what would happen if all emissions of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas contributing to global warming, stop immediately. That is, we instantly cease all fossil-based power generation, transportation, industry and manufacturing.

The study finds that even so, the carbon dioxide level in the air would remain high for the next 100 years because nature can only take up a fraction of it. The effect of this is that global temperatures would stay up. That is, there would not be any appreciable cooling. Worse, if all emissions stop 40 years from now, i.e. 2050, temperatures would continue to rise further for at least a century.

(Simplified from an article in Nature, Vol. 458, p.1093, April 2009.)

A similar study conducted by scientist from U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gives the same result, except that the picture looks even worse --- carbon dioxide levels would remain elevated 1000 years into the future. Welcome to very warm, sizzling world.

So, is it time to act ?

B.Y. Lee

Dragon boats in May, stow the blanket away ?

As the Dragon Boat Festival draws near, we at the Observatory are often asked the question whether the weather has got so warm these days that blankets and winter clothing can be put away earlier.

I have looked at temperature readings around the time of Tuen Ng (Dragon Boat Festival) over the past few decades. Taking a minimum of 25 degrees Celsius as a comfortable temperature for the night, the number of days having this temperature or lower for the 7-day period ending on Tuen Ng is:

10-year period	No. of days with minimum of 25 degrees or lower for the 7-day period ending on Tuen Ng
1979-1988	35 (50%)
1989-1998	24 (34%)
1999-2008	21 (30%)

It could thus be said that 20 to 30 years ago, nighttime in Hong Kong was comfortable half of the time during the Tuen Ng period. We are losing this fast, and now it has gone down to less than one-third of the time.

Scientific evidence supporting climate change is strong and unequivocal. Hong Kong is hit by a double whammy --- global warming and urbanization, the latter a result of city development and population growth.

The current projection for Hong Kong is that, by the decade 2030-39, the number of cold days, i.e. those with a minimum of 12 degrees Celsius or below, will on average be less than one per year. A more dramatic way of putting this is by that time we will lose winter altogether. Gone will be the days of hot pots and winter fashion.

This is only 20 years from now, and is set to happen earlier if the current way of life and society development does not change.

It takes global effort to contain the warming. The least we Hong Kong people can do is to adopt a simple, less energy-intensive lifestyle.

B.Y. Lee